The Thirteen: A Novel by Susie Molone
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I got this book as a free promo at World Fantasy, and it survived the brutal “I don’t want to check my bag” purging at the end of the convention. Alas, I misplaced it and thought I’d left it on the plane, and by that time I was so involved in the story that I actually went to the library and got it for my kindle so I could find out how it ended even though I pretty much already knew.
Which is why I’m giving it 3.5 stars (rounded up to 4) even though I always give practically everything only three stars because that’s my default so that the rare 5 star books look amazing. It only gets four instead of three because I found myself willing to jump through hoops to keep, so there’s the whole psychological investment, and it’s irrational, so you should never judge a book by its stars, but read the whole review.
Girl and her mom move to her mom’s hometown because their grandma is sick. They don’t know what she has or why, because there’s only ever one other person in the hospital. The other women in town are creepy, and there are a lot of cats, but the warnings they get from grandma are cryptic, and besides, there’s a nice guy who mom likes and his nice dog, who girl likes, so they stay until IT’S TOO LATE.
Here’s what I liked: witches were evil, but plausibly evil. Yes, it’s ironic that I find “evil witches” refreshing and novel. Despite that, I kind of sympathized with how the witches had gotten into their situation. I mean, sure, they get into the coven knowing that people are going to die as sacrifices, but considering their other options, it kind of makes sense. I liked the empty hospital too, and the bit with the cats. The fingers falling off were creepy-fantastic. I liked that they didn’t get all religious about the anti-witch thing. It wasn’t a good vs. evil thing so much as “I’d like to be rich and successful” vs. “but I don’t want my family members to die in horrible accidents.”
There were flaws. The epilogue had a meeting with a mysterious woman whose identity baffled me. It was obvious we were supposed to know who she was and why she was there, but I didn’t get it. There’s a flaw near the climax when everyone in the town is asleep except for one guy, who, by all rights, should have been hit with the spell as well. Also, I kinda wanted to know what was going to happen to all the witches. Were they going to die, or what? What about their families? Still, I shrugged off the flaws because the plotting was tight enough.
I think this book will appeal most to fans of action novels.
